


To have and to hold

by Phrose



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Ted is an asshole, Ted needs a hug, but he really tries, hidgens is a CARD, mentions of domestic violence, there's just no way he didn't hurt like hell after charlotte died. I refuse to believe it.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-25 19:24:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20729492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrose/pseuds/Phrose
Summary: He turned his back on her. He left her alone.How can you grieve a love that was never yours to keep?





	1. Show them a crack, they'll tear down the wall.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [jammincupofjava](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/521684) by @jammincupofjava on instagram. 

> Hey everybody! once again, this is a fic I'm using to play around with writing styles, so comments and criticisms are always appreciated!  
I'll update warnings as I go but this tends to go pretty dark so stay safe and if there's anything I've forgotten to tag, please let me know!
> 
> this chapter has vague mentions of past abuse so as always use discretion and stay safe. 
> 
> I was heavily inspired by this artwork by @jammincupofjava on instagram, go check out their work!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ted's too stubborn for his own good.

Charlotte’s eyes bore into Ted’s skull. She looked so distraught. Why did he always have to be so stubborn? 

  


_ “Just tell her you love her _ ” he thought to himself. “ _ If there ever was a time for it, it’s now.” _

  


Charlotte turned her attention to Sam as Ted wracked his brain, begging himself to say something, anything.

  


“Well, if I’m gonna die, I’m gonna go out doing the thing I love”

  


“ _ You.”  _ Good.

  


“Screwing around with another man’s wife” 

  


Shit.

  


Ted kept speaking despite every cell in his body wanting to stop. To analyze. It’s the end of the world for christ’s sake. Its now or never. 

  


Next thing Ted knows she’s in his arms again, just like they had been countless nights before. It was easy to let the sudden warmth and lust resurface, he knew this whole song and dance. The cement walls around them seemed to radiate pure, vibrant energy rather than cold, and for the first time since that morning, he felt at ease. He could get lost in this feeling. 

  


“Wait, Ted!” Charlotte ran a gentle finger down Ted’s face. Despite how gentle the gesture was, it felt like a knife running down his skin. She didn’t want this. He’d screwed up again. What the hell was he thinking? Of course she doesn’t want him now. Sam’s here. He was always just a placeholder for Sam. 

  


“My husband’s brains fell out today, if I can’t be a wife to him now what kind of a woman am I?” 

  


“I don’t know Charlotte, I’m not your therapist!” Ted spat, sharply releasing Charlotte and immediately feeling the cool air fill in the space where she once was.

  


He really didn’t mean to lash out at her. He wanted to cling to her every single second until they expired, but now that the walls were down, there really was no stopping the venom dripping from his tongue. 

  


“Why don’t you just go back to fucking him? Hm? I know that’s why you actually went to counselling.” 

  


“That’s not the only reason!” Ted cringed hearing the pain seep into her voice. 

  


“I wanted to make things work with Sam…. I love him.” 

  


Ted found himself honestly taken aback. He had seen the things he’s done to her. He’s been the one there to try and help clean up the mess. 

  


“I know I shouldn't, but I do.”

  


Ted knew she did. He always knew. That didn’t make the sting any better.

  


“No, Charlotte! This guy is a scumbag! You could upgrade.” Ted gestured towards himself and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “To a sleazeball. But you refuse to be happy!” tears begin to prick the edge of his vision as he gains the courage to continue speaking.

  


“You know what Charlotte, i’m done, alright? So you can just stay here with your dying marriage and your dying husband.” He tosses Char the keys with shaking hands, and turns to leave before the tears spill.

  


“I’m gonna go hit on that crabby barista.”

  


Next thing Ted knows, he’s leaving. 

He makes it just past the door before he hears Charlotte call his name.

He makes it halfway down the hall before he has to stop and steady himself, sinking to the floor.

He doesn’t make it much longer before sobs start to wrack his body. 

  


_ “I need a drink” _

  
  
  



	2. It all falls down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ted looks within himself, and he doesn't like what he sees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter alludes to past domestic violence. stay safe as usual!

Ted wiped his eyes and heaved his tired body off the floor once charlotte began talking about Sam. He couldn’t bring himself to listen despite already knowing every one of their secrets. The things Sam had done, the pieces of her that she needed help to fix. She had let him in, let him  _ help _ . Charlotte trusted him. 

Eventually, Ted made his way back to the others, a large bottle of bourbon in tow. Ted’s hands shook as he fiddled with the neck of the bottle. 

He had snapped at Bill, Ted knew in his heart that he didn’t deserve it, but the alcohol mixed with the rage burning in his stomach and he couldn’t stop himself. Plus, he seemed to be the only one who understood the gravity of the situation. At least the Professor was doing something. He was the only one who could. So Ted sat there, drunk, anxious, angry, and unable to do anything to help. 

He longed for another drink as he tried to listen in on Paul and Emma, who had taken the bourbon away from him, sitting on the floor across the room. He tried to focus on anything but his racing thoughts. It didn’t work.

Emma brought up her sister, and Ted’s mind immediately went to his family. They had to be gone by now. Even at the end of the world, nobody had tried to reach him. It had been years since he’d heard from his family. His parents had kicked him out the day after his 16th birthday, and he hadn’t talked to them since. He’s held his own, kept tabs on his little brother and tried to keep his head above water but god he did miss having someone to come home to. In the years between then and now, the only person who would have noticed if he vanished off the face of the earth was his little brother, Ethan.

He burned that bridge, though.

He likes to think that Charlotte would have noticed. After all, she helped Ted as much as he helped her. For every night that Ted sat with her, rubbed her back, took her in, and did everything he could to keep her safe, Char gave back by checking in on him when he was quiet in the office, when his drinking left him blacked out outside of any dive bar he could find, when he couldn’t get down from the anger that all too often rose within him. She gave him a home. Ted trusted her.

He hung his head in his hands, covering his ears in a futile attempt to quiet his mind. 

They had trusted each other, and Ted left her with the man he had sworn to protect her from. Oh, god. 

As if on cue, lightning struck and electrified the air, Ted shot to his feet as he took in the gruesome sight before him.

Sam.

Not tied up. 

Head cracked open.

Standing.

He shouldn’t be able to stand.

Charlotte.

A crazed smile on her face.

Her sweater ripped open and covered in blood.

Her intestines hanging limply.

“Charlotte!” Ted cried out, his pulse booming in his ears almost loud enough to drown out the music building.

Almost loud enough.

The first note comes out of Charlotte’s mouth, and Ted’s stomach drops. 

His mouth goes dry. 

His eyes water. 

He failed her.


	3. how do you sleep at night?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deep in your silence,  
Please try to hear me;  
I'll keep you near me  
Till night passes by.

Ted was shaking. When had he started shaking? _Oh god._ _What have you done?_

His breath hitched as Charlotte began to mechanically walk towards him and Bill.

“Char? Char. Listen to me, if you’re in there I need you to try and hear me” Ted pleaded, his voice getting lost in her melody.

“Char please.”

She charged, and Ted ran, finding himself face to face with Charlotte as she sung. He looked into her eyes. She wasn’t in there. Just a husk, vulgar and violent. And that’s when the fear hit.

Ted rushed, looking for anything to protect himself with. He grabbed a chair by the legs and shoved Bill out of his way before abandoning his plan once the couple turned to them, beginning to pursue their targets.

Looking back, shoving Bill in front of him was far from his finest moment, his apologies muttered through tears didn’t justify it, but karma caught up with him fast when the breath was knocked out of him the second that Sam’s fist collided with Ted’s stomach. 

His stomach jolted as he was thrust to the floor by an elbow slamming into his back. He could have sworn he saw stars, but the pain that followed in thumps and thuds kept bringing him back to reality. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to crawl his way out only to be effortlessly slung back into the full force of the blows. 

His ears began to ring as a loud bang rang through the small bar area of the bunker. Ted took the chance to scramble out from underneath Charlotte and Sam, only to be jarred by a second bang.

Ted crawled away, sat on his knees, and stared. 

Before him, Charlotte was laid out on the cement floor, blue goop oozing from a messy bullet hole in the front of her skull. 

“Professor! You killed Charlotte!” Emma yelled.

Ted let out a breath he was unaware he had been holding.

Charlotte was dead.

It was all his fault.


	4. Hope for the hopeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ted snaps  
Bill just wants his daughter back.

To say today had been hard would be the understatement of the century. Once the barrel of the Professor’s gun was removed from his eye line, Ted took a breath and began to slink towards the abandoned bottle he had almost forgotten about. 

The static in his mind was more than enough to drown out the Professor, and frankly, Ted was okay with that. He necked the bottle once more as he looked to Charlotte, or rather, the thing that  _ used to be _ Charlotte. This was his fault. He promised to keep her safe. That promise wasn’t supposed to end. He had given her a key to his apartment, tried time and time again to convince her to leave Sam. He tried to show her that the way Sam treated her wasn’t normal. Ted had wanted her to be happy so damn bad. He could’ve almost convinced himself he loved her. 

Really, he just knew what it was like. He had been there. She needed a constant, and damn it Ted was going to try to be that for her. Yeah, more often than not it lead to sex, but not before everything else had been taken care of. The sex was a perk Ted would not soon forget. Charlotte had so much love to give and he felt so lucky to be on the receiving end of it, even if the circumstances were less than ideal.

Ted’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Bill’s phone ringing. He sat back as he watched Bill scramble to answer it. The room hushed, and the longer Bill spoke, the angrier Ted grew. 

“You get away from her, you understand? Get far away!”

_ It’s hopeless _

Ted only knew Alice from their limited interactions at dinners and office Christmas parties. Even still, Ted knew she wasn’t the type of kid who would be able to stand up to Deb. She was too gentle, too forgiving. She’d try to save her and it would just get her killed. It was too late. This world didn’t seem to take well to kindness.

“Everything’s going to be fine.”

Bill’s voice cracked as he spoke, and Ted was sure the panicked energy in the room was palpable from miles away.

_ Bill, what don’t you get? It’s too late. _

Bill’s frantic footsteps faded away as the warmth from the booze finally entered Ted’s system, a thick fog layering itself over the pain, quickly seeding anger in its place. 

“What’s happening Bill?” Paul spoke with a caution Ted hadn’t heard in ages, he was always a more calculated person, but this time his usual delivery was laced with fear.

“It’s Alice. She’s stuck in Hatchetfield.”

_ She’s dead on her feet. _

“I need to take the car, she’s in Hatchetfield high, she locked herself in the choir room.” Bill’s breathing picked up, Alice was all he had after the divorce. She was all he had to love, one week a month.

“And you’re gonna save her?” Ted snarled

“G.I Bill? You’re gonna run and gun your way through a city of singing zombie motherfuckers?”

The group watched with bated breath as the white-hot fire burned inside of Ted.

“Wake up, Bill. She’s already dead.”

Ted glanced back to Charlotte, laying on the floor in front of him. If he couldn’t save her, what makes Bill think he has a better shot? Charlotte was down the hall, Alice is downtown. Maybe they’re all beyond saving. 

“Don’t you dare Ted!”

He snapped up as Bill yelled, quickly closing the space between him.

“You’re gonna get there, and she’s gonna be dead, and you’re gonna die too. That’s exactly what’s gonna happen if you try and go back through downtown.” 

“Well what else am I supposed to do?” Bill choked a bit on his words, looking Ted in the eyes. Ted saw the desperation. Ted shrugged.

The others began to formulate a plan, and Ted found himself downing the remainder of the bottle. He watched as they frantically laid out the route. 

“Okay, okay. This is a lot of directions.”

“Don’t bother, he’s gonna let lost.” Ted scoffed, supporting himself on the chair in front of him. His hands were steady for the first time since he left Charlotte.

“You are such a fucking creep, you know that?” Emma was glaring daggers at him, but it did nothing but egg Ted on.

“Oh I’m a fucking creep?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a fucking creep? Listen, sweetheart, the world has changed, alright? There are no creeps, there are no heroes, there are only people who are alive and people who are _ fucking dead! _ ”

Ted struggled to catch his breath, he could hear his blood rushing through his veins.

“And Bill’s daughter?”

Ted looked into Bill’s eyes.

“She’s dead.”

The room falls into a hushed silence. Emma is staring at him, a disgusted look plastered on her face. Bill begins pacing again. Paul, however, stands still, frozen.

“What, I’m only saying what we all know is true, right Paul?”

Paul hesitated, sighing in an attempt to buy just a few more seconds to collect his thoughts.

“I know that the chances are slim to nil, and I know that Bill doesn't know the shortcut.”

Bill stopped pacing to face Paul, his eyes searching the room for hope he didn’t have a chance at finding.

“Bill, if you go you’re not gonna make it. Which is why I’m gonna go with you to get your daughter back.”

Ted threw up his hands in defeat. How could everyone around him be so blind? Nobody can be saved. It's all futile.

“You’d do that for me paul?”

“Hey, it’s not like you’re asking me to go see Mamma Mia.” Paul chuckled, fear still evident in his eyes.

Ted got to his feet with one mission in mind, he really needed to find more booze.


	5. Down in the gutter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ted breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has descriptions of a panic attack so stay safe as always!

Emma had been in the lab with the Professor for what seemed like hours. However long it had actually been, Ted had no clue. What Ted did know, however, was that it was enough time for him to polish off a bottle of vodka, and that’s how he found himself slumped on the floor, staring at nothing, feeling far too much.

He had never been good at pushing away pain. Hiding it was a breeze, but he still felt it all. He usually just drank himself to sleep, but tonight he knew it wouldn’t come. All he wanted was Charlotte by his side, speaking soft words in his ear, her warm presence grounding him. He was the reason she was gone.

Ted began to feel warm streaks of tears run down his face, he felt like he was being crushed under the weight of his current situation. Charlotte was dead. He couldn’t be far behind her. It was all his fault.

He sobbed through wheezing breaths, slinking forwards till he no longer had the wall supporting him, and he sat on his knees unable to do much of anything else. 

Today had broken him. 

His mind ran faster than he could keep up, his vision swimming with panic and tears.

She was dead.

It was his fault.

Why couldn’t he have stayed with her? Why didn’t he stay? She would be alive right now if Ted weren’t so goddamn stubborn.

And useless, god he was so useless. 

His head was pounding

Even if Emma and the Professor found a cure, Hidgens shot her. You can’t come back from a gunshot wound to the head.

Oh god, oh  _ god.  _

What could he do without her? He had nobody now. 

He was alone.

And he had nobody to blame but himself.

Ted couldn’t breathe. He tried to remember what Charlotte would say to him to calm him down but all he could think of was her voice. Her gentle touch. How she looked when sunlight beamed through the window and hit her face in the morning. Her lifeless body. How she called out for him before he left. How the last conversation they ever had was a fight. Her intestines hanging out of her stomach. Charlotte drenched in blood. Her mechanical movements. Her voice, singing like it was all she had ever known how to do. 

Ted threw his head in his hands, willing himself to breathe, his racing thoughts violently clashed with the blood pounding through his veins. Everything was so loud, he was so small. 

_ Char, help me _

_ She can’t help you, she’s gone. _

_ She’s gone. _

Ted felt a hand on his back and began swinging, but not hitting anything.

_ Not like this, no _

The sensation of the hand being drawn away was a relief and a curse, Ted drew into himself, it felt like he was falling. He prayed he would hit the ground soon.

Would that even make it stop?

Someone was talking to him, he couldn’t make out the words, but he heard it. 

Someone grabbed his hand, and he was too exhausted to fight it. 

“Charlotte?” Ted whimpered

“Ted, It’s just me.”

“Professor?” 

“Yeah, Ted. I’m going to try and help you breathe a bit better, but you need to look at me to do that alright?”

Ted nodded, bringing his eyes to meet Professor Hidgens’ but it proved to be too difficult to maintain. He felt the Professor tentatively reach for his hand, placing it on his chest while taking deep breaths that Ted then tried to match. 

After a few minutes, Ted was able to look up to the silver-haired man before him. This was the first time he’d ever really been able to get a good look at him all night. He looked exhausted.

“Ted, what happened there?” The professor sat across from Ted, eyeing him up and down with concern filling his entire being.

“I’m sorry, Professor. Charlotte usually helps, but she’s-” a rough sob shook Ted to his core, and he felt Hidgens fill the space beside him, placing a hand on his knee. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for. You lost someone you seem to have loved quite dearly. I know first hand that that isn’t something one can just let go of.”

Ted nodded, drying his eyes on the back of his hand. 

“And please, call me Henry.”


	6. Who do you trust?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the world has gone to ruin, what comes next?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a really fun one to write, I hope y'all enjoy it as much as I did. 
> 
> It has brief mentions of domestic violence and alcoholism, so stay safe.
> 
> thank you all so much for sticking with this story and leaving kudos, it means a lot!

“I wouldn’t have called it love.” Ted muttered, more to himself than the professor.

“What do you mean?”

“You said it seemed like I loved her. I didn’t. I mean, sure, we fucked, but we were just there for stability. She  _ loved _ Sam.”

“I see.” Henry adjusted himself. “Forgive me if I’m out of line, Ted, but if she really had loved Sam, why have the affair?”

Ted ran a hand over his face. He took in a shaky breath and tried to find the words.

“Comfort.” he finally muttered. “Sam was never around and when he was he was either drunk, angry, or asleep. He was horrible to her. I guess she just needed somewhere else to be and a way to pass the time.” He looked down at the floor, he had never said it out loud before. He could ignore it when it was in his head, but hearing the words echo off the walls made it real. He never stood a chance. “No matter how many times I told her to leave, that she was unsafe, that she deserved better, at least, she would always just bring up how she was going to counselling and that she was sure he would change. He never did.”

Henry furrowed his brow, hand still resting on Ted’s knee.

“Then why did you stay?” He questioned as gently as he could. Henry had never been good with emotions, but talking seemed to be keeping Ted calm, so he listened.

“I may not have loved her, but I cared. We all did, but when she would make offhand comments about how ‘Sam’s been under a lot of pressure’, I seemed to be the only one who she’d take up on any offers to help. There were days when she’d walk into the office with bruises on her wrists and I just couldn’t go home and live my life knowing she was shacked up with that monster, even if she said no I wanted to at least let her know she had somewhere she could go." Ted tilted his head back and bit his lip, trying to maintain composure. “She helped me too. After I moved here and started at CCRP, she was the only person who saw through my act. That’s how it started. I had a fight with my brother. He was the only real family I had left at the time. He was on my ass about trying to fix things with our dad and I told him that if he wasn’t going to be on my side then he could just forget it. He told me that he would miss me, but I wouldn’t be hearing from him again, and that was that. I was alone.”

Ted only realized he had started crying again when he felt the professor hand him a napkin from the bar. He wiped his face and continued. 

“After that, I started drinking pretty heavily. Days started to blur together, I was on my last strike with the boss. Not that I cared. It wasn’t until Char cornered me on a smoke break and asked me when the last time I had been sober was that I realized I wasn’t just falling off the map, people were watching. I snapped at her, and she offered to take me home.” Ted remembered that day well. She even drove his car instead of her own so he wouldn’t have to come back for it on foot. She sat next to him and listened, despite his words being laced with rage and bitterness. “She made sure I knew that someone cared. I asked her to stay with me, and she did. And then she came over again the next day. And the next.” It was amazing how all of the sad memories Ted had since moving to Hatchetfield were all laced with Charlotte’s gentle touch. He would have moved mountains for her. 

“She started showing up at my place whenever she needed to get away from Sam. In the beginning, the nights never started with the end goal of getting laid, it was always just us being there for each other. Making sure we knew that there was always someone looking out.”

“I mean sure, the sex was phenomenal, and we had nights where all we wanted to do was bone.” Ted laughed, memories flooding his heart. “Maybe I did love her.”

“Ted, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m the one who left her there. It’s almost funny. I must have told her that I’d always be there to keep her safe thousands of times, and I left her alone with Sam. I was stupid to think he wouldn’t hurt her. He had done it when he was the one in charge of his brain, why wouldn’t he now?” 

“You didn’t make her stay. She did that on her own accord.”

“I knew she wouldn’t follow me. It was always Sam, no matter what he did.” Ted choked. “Char is- was- the sweetest person I’ve ever known. Always forgiving to a fault. I couldn’t imagine anyone hurting her, but here we are.”

Ted ran his hands through his hair as Henry moved his hand to Ted’s shoulder, looking into his eyes. Ted noticed just how much the years had taken a toll on him. 

“You did everything you could to protect her, Ted. Sometimes, there are people you just can’t save. It’s taken me thirty years to figure that out, and I’m still not sure I’ve come to terms with it.” Henry reassured. He knew far too well what it felt like. 

“You know, Ted, I was in a similar situation when I was just starting out.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I lost six of my best friends to a disease not unlike what’s infecting Hatchetfield now.” 

Ted sat up straighter, ringing his hands. 

“This has happened before? Why didn’t it make news?”

“Nobody believed me. They said I was just traumatized, that I was crazy.” Henry signed, running his hands through his hair. “I was an infectious disease researcher back in the early 90’s, me and some of my college buddies were on site in south america, Peru I think, I can’t say I remember specifically. We went in believing it was just a precaution to send us. We were under the impression that it was just a case of mass hysteria working its way through a small town by the border.”

“Until you saw the blood.” Ted all but gasped.

“We knew right then that it was very much under our jurisdiction. We set up a lab as best we could and got to work, figuring with seven of us we would move fairly quickly, but then Leighton came in one day humming a tune none of us recognized, and the next thing we knew Greg and Steve were humming the same melody. We quarantined them, took blood samples and tried to move faster but with just the four of us any progress was slow. The humming turned to singing, the singing turned to full bouts of dancing to music the rest of us couldn’t hear. We continued our work, but three days later it was just Chad and I.”

Ted couldn’t help but notice the way Henry’s eyes drifted when he mentioned Chad. It was like he was calling out for someone who had no way of hearing him.

“Did you get close?”

“I don’t know. Chad and I had managed to turn some blood back to it’s regular colour, but there was no way it would have been able to sustain life. It was thick, like molasses, there was no way a human heart could carry it through the body. It explains the strength these creatures have.”

Ted rubbed at the bruises still forming on his back and side from Charlotte and Sam. They had kicked him around like he weighed nothing, and he was almost he would find more bruises in the morning.

“Chad started singing not long after that.” Henry wiped his eyes, sighing. “He tried to attack me in the lab on day five of our experiments, I had to kill my best friend. The last conversation we had, he told me that it would turn out alright, that we would find a way. He swore to keep me safe.”

“Henry… I can’t imagine.”

“You’ve been through it, Ted. That’s the point. I’ve tried everything I could think of but I don’t think there’s a way to stop it.” Henry seemed angry, and understandably, Ted thought. The energy in his eyes had seemingly come out of nowhere and if he was being entirely honest, Ted was getting nervous.

“You and Emma will figure something out, if you need another set of hands in the lab I’m here, I was never great at science but we have to do all we can to at least try, right?”

“Ted, I don’t think there’s any more to do.” Henry grabbed him by the shoulders, his grip tight and unwavering. “This is otherworldly, and we are unequipped to handle a virus like this. We need to start thinking of a plan B.”

“Then we fight until they get us. I have nothing left to lose, so we should at least try to crush as much of this as we can before it spreads right?” Ted’s voice was shaking as he tried to keep up to the professor’s ramblings. He was downright frightened.

“Ted, what makes you think that we have any power here? It took less than a day from the meteor strike to infect almost all of Hatchetfield. A city of 2,500 people overrun by these creatures. You told Bill yourself. It’s hopeless. We need to adapt.” Henry released Ted’s arms roughly and stood up, leaving Ted sat against the bar, as the professor walked to grab his jacket that he had abandoned when he walked in.

“Professor, what happened to the village?” Ted asked, tentatively. 

“A government agency came in, did a clean sweep. I was the only one that made it out before they killed every last man, woman, and child in the town. I suppose the same will happen here.’

“What?!” Ted’s voice came out far more loudly than he would have liked, but the statement shocked him to his feet as he began to run to the professor. “They can’t just do that, can they?”

“They can and they have, Ted. Like I said, we have to adapt. When is it not worth it to fight anymore, you said it yourself, you have nothing to lose.”


	7. doubt comes in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ted gets his second wind, but is it too late?

“How can you say that?! Listen man, I’m not trying to say I’m a good person, I’m not, but you’re out of your fucking mind!” Ted shouted. “I’m getting Emma.’

With that, Henry leapt into action, grabbing Ted by the collar of his shirt and yanking him away from the doorway. 

Ted choked when he collided backwards, and attempted to kick the professor off of him, to no avail.

Henry quickly turned him around, on hand holding his upper body still, the other knotted into the fabric of his shirt, he caught his breath, looking Ted in the eyes with a manic yet hopeful expression that was only ever worn by a broken man, disillusioned by the pain of past wounds made fresh. 

Ted could feel Henry’s breath on his face, and something cold and metallic in the hand Henry had pressed against his arm.

“Ted, this is for the greater good, you need to make the right choice.”

“I’m more inclined to act in self preservation. Its people like you that remind me why. You lost some friends? Get in line. Yeah, it's hard, but it’s not worth dying over.” maybe he was lying to himself, but his will was too strong right now to ignore. Bill and Paul were probably dead by now, but if Ted managed to find a way out of Hatchetfield, he could start over. He had to get out. As much as he hated to admit it, he needed Emma. 

Ted tried to pull away and call for her, but the Professors grip was unrelenting, and all that he could muster was a strangled cry to nobody, Henry grabbed him closer and shoved something cold in his neck. 

The last thing Ted could process was the feeling of being slug over Henry’s shoulder before the world faded to nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this one was so short, school is starting to catch up to me. Thanks for your patience and for sticking with the story!


End file.
